, 1887-09-04
and the rear extended cavernous stalls
and stables, always

-@ a. SNN AhOuo nOdll5
and stables, always
A BUSTLING, BUSY A
from the coming and going at all times of
day and night. Here, | find, Irving came
repeatedly, with one companion or an
other, but oftener with young Paulding;
and there is no doubt that his first gent
inc promptings TO the rambling propen-
sit" which he confesses was strength
ened with my years. were got from this
coming and going of the rugged folk he
here saw, and his enjoyment at this place
of the gay and lively scenes at the arrival
and departure of the Red Bird" stage,
which with great fuss and clatter enliy-
ened the little villages between New
York and old DanburY town in Connecti-
cut.
In any event, l had no difficulty in find
ing traces of his loiterings in the latter
place and the intermediate hamlets, as
well as at village corners, at AL places
made famous in history" and spots
where a murder or robbery had been
committed, or a ghost seen" to the right
and lett, throughout romantic Westches-
ter county, before he had ever seen this
witching spot, Tarrytown, save from the
deck of the old Dutch sloop with the
negro crew. on which he journeyed to
Albany in 1900, and first feasted his
eyes and soul on the beauties and splen-
doris of the Hudson. For there are those
still living, true chroniclers of treasured
memories not in the books, who can tell
of his radiant. boyish face at the old Ber-
rian tavern, at Fordham, where poor Poe
atterward lived and hoped until they
buried his idolized Virginia in the old
Dutch churchyard on the Kingsbridge
road, at times when the farmers had to
come TO law" and drink New England
rum; of his wanderings on the Bronx in
MANY A GREwsoME GLEN;
of his frequent sudden appearance at the
old fort tavern opposite the grand and
ancient Minot Mitchell homestead at
White Plains, where he would hob-nob
with the Judges, barristers and John Does
and Richard Roes at petty pleadipgs in
the olden court house long since gone, or
stroll along the high plateau opposite to
the village, where Howe and the British
gave our forefathers such a handsome
%drubbing on that October day in 1776;
and of his many, many visits at West
Farms village, on the old stage road 10
Danbury, where three. quarters of a CEN
tury ago the Dutch grew fine cabbage and
coopers, and lazy market sloops came up
from the Sound. All these were the old
haunts, scenes and influences which made
Irving. Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow
did not. Irving made them.
No place save this dreamful Sleepy
Hollow here was made more famous by
the association, or writing, of Irving than
"Cockloft Hall, one of his first mellow
tinted paintings i'll the celebrated "Salma-
gundi' papers; and no place noted in
L. L.. ill., \
SO thoroughly pass from sight and mem
DRY. So in these hunts for Irving haunts
| recently made a pilgrimage to old New
again located. So far as the traveller or
SEEKER FOR sHRTNEs
may know, not a score of its 100, 900 good
people ever heard of glorious old Cock
loft Hall" But by and by after much
travail and seeking among the old, old
folk and the musty records there, | stood
where it stood, and fancied | heard Irving
and Paulding and their jolly crew at their
innocent revels in the quaint little summer
house on the banks of the lovely Passaic.
The place was then, and still is, known as
the ''old Gouverneur Place" and was the
property of the Kembles as late as 1924.
Records show that later it was successfully
owned by the Duryea's, the Wakenans, and
finally the Writings, whose heirs now live
in the vcritable old house, at the
northeast corner of Gouverneur street and
Mount Pleasant avenue; but the fine
mansion of that time has been SO dis
gulsed by wings, additions, porches, Gu
polas and modern architectural frip-fraps
that the shades of the old roysterers, as
now do the denizens of Newark, would
pass it without the knowing. The old
summer house, now wholly obliterated,
was a queer structure, octagonal in shape,
eighteen feet in diameter, containing only
one apartment, with doors facing the
Passaic on the east, and with windows
opening to each of the other three cardi-
nal points; for, says Godfrey Cravon, it
was one of Cockloft's idiosyncrasies Ito
have all his own views
ON HIS OWN LAND,
and be beholden to no man for a pros
pect." This very conceit Irving, when
building Sunny Side, took largely into
account. "Cockloft hall" grounds, COM
posed of about twenty acres, extending
from Belleville road, which leads from
Newark to the deserted old village of
Bellville back to the Passaic; and the
mansion, a capacious two story house
WIN wings, poiOhcoi hippCu AOOl anu
gable windows looking north and south,
was reached by a fine driveway through
noble bordering trees. On this very spot
the mrth, wit and satire which stirred
the American literary world of that time
in ~"Salmagundi," were born, enjoyed and
contrived for public feasting.
OF Tarrytown, Sunny Side and Sleepy
Hollow little can be said which has not
already been over and again enioyably
told. l knew it all, and the witch spots
across the broad Tappan Zee, for a TO-
mantle, idyllic time Just twenty years
ago. Then on an old screw of a nag out
r~ivaling in lank sides and wide and dis
persed legs Ichabod's 'Ironsides," l
made voyages of discovery to the remot-
est hooks and farm houses of the sur
rounding country; made love to the
Katr1nas, and even the old Dutch danes,
of the Sleepy Hollow valley; looked upon
the enhancing, half Moorish cottage
I%rving's own good hands had rebuilt,
NTH reverential gaze; swept over the old
course where the desperate schoolmaster
| sped from the awful specter that pursued;
| or loitered about upon the warlock-haunted